Shoes in the church...

I showered and shaved, I adjusted my tie.
I got there and sat,In a pew just in time
Bowing my head in prayer, As I closed my eyes.
I saw the shoe of the man next to me, Touching my own. I sighed.
With plenty of room on either side, I thought, "Why must our soles
touch?"
It bothered me, his shoe touching mine, But it didn't bother him much.
A prayer began: "Our Father", I thought, "This man with the shoes.. Has no pride.
They're dusty, worn, and scratched. Even worse, there are holes on the side!"
"Thank You for blessings," the prayer went on.
The shoe man said A quiet "Amen."
I tried to focus on the prayer But my thoughts were on his shoes
again.
Aren't we supposed to look our best When walking through that door?
"Well, this certainly isn't it," I thought, Glancing toward the floor.
Then the prayer was ended And the songs of praise began.
The shoe man was certainly loud Sounding proud as he sang.
His voice lifted the rafters His hands were raised high.
The Lord could surely hear.. The shoe man's voice from the sky.
It was time for the offering And what I threw in was steep.
I watched as the shoe man reached Into his pockets so deep.
I saw what was pulled out What the shoe man put in.
Then I heard a soft "clink" . As when silver hits tin.
The sermon really bored me To tears, and that's no lie.
It was the same for the shoe man For tears fell from his eyes.
At the end of the service As is the custom here.
We must greet new visitors And show them all good cheer.
But I felt moved somehow And wanted to meet the shoe man.
So after the closing prayer I reached over and shook his hand.
He was old and his skin was dark And his hair was truly a mess.
But I thanked him for coming For being our guest.
He said, "My names' Charlie I'm glad to meet you, my friend."
There were tears in his eyes But he had a large, wide grin.
"Let me explain," he said. Wiping tears from his eyes.
"I've been coming here for monthsAnd you're the first to say 'Hi.'"
"I know that my appearanceIs not like all the rest.
"But I really do try To always look my best."
"I always clean and polish my shoes before my very long walk.
"But by the time I get here They're dirty and dusty, like chalk."
My heart filled with pain, And I swallowed to hide my tears.
As he continued to apologize For daring to sit so near.
He said, "When I get here I know I must look a sight.
"But I thought if I could touch you Then maybe our souls might unite."
I was silent for a moment Knowing whatever was said
Would pale in comparison I spoke from my heart, not my head.
"Oh, you've touched me," I said "And taught me, in part;
"That the best of any man Is what is found in his heart."
The rest, I thought, This shoe man will never know.
Like just how thankful I really am That his dirty old shoe touched my soul.

Prayer of Sir Francis Drake

I found this beautiful prayer on Anthony Delaney's website www.anthonydelaney.com

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

Gone

The Boy has gone. Back to uni. The house is too quiet.

We love him.

Cat is still here. Smile.

Calm

If my day was a menu, it would have looked like this:

My starter was gazpacho.
Deliciously chilled, yet full of flavour
as I picked up on little tasks: a spot of cleaning,
reviewing a story, answering an email,
chatting on facebook.
No stress.

Lunch was tagliatelli carbonara
with wild rocket and mushroom salad
laced with parmesan shavings,
as I wove my way around town with my children and my dog,
running little errands
enjoying having time to do these things together.

Afternoon tea was what it said on the tin:
a feast of freshly made scones, Guernsey butter,
home made jam and coffee, walnut layer cake.
My best friend Renee shares her life with me:
her wisdom, her love,her kindliness are better than food.
Than fruit cake, even.

Dinner: potato salad, drenched in olive oil, lemon juice and fresh herbs.
Tuna. Newly grown vine tomatoes.
Being with family: my husband, my son, my daughter, my dog.
As varied as potato salad,yet all mixed together.
Laughing.

Telling each other: "I love you."

Appointments and random opportunities

When did we get so busy?

When I was younger,
I did not need appointments to see my friends.
I went to them.
They came to me.
We were drawn together like loose magnets.

When I lived in a different place:
at college
in Sweden
in Africa
I did not need appointments to see my friends.
Sometimes I would make them anyway.
To drive one hundred miles, to find your friend is not in,
is a disappointment too great to bear easily.
But still
I went to them.
They came to me.
We were drawn together like loose magnets.

Now I am older.
Now I live in this English culture.
I need appointments to see my friends.
My life is busy, structured.
I need to diarise my opportunities, write them on a calendar.
When my time is free, it is 'catch-up': at home, at work.

I find it interesting that the only place I do not make appointments to see my friends is at work.
I drop in to a colleague's classroom unannounced.
We chat about work. Sometimes we chat about personal matters.
We do not make appointments.

Interesting.

Can I change things? Do I want to?

Simnel Cake

I made you for the first time today.
I made you.

I remembered your sweetness from another life.
A life in my mother's house, covered with innocence of tiny chicks and pink icing.
A life in Africa: plain, simple, no adornments.

Now you enter my life again.

I remembered the richness of you, the moisture, the promise of hidden secrets.
The eggs, symbols of the new life we have.
The flour of a bountiful harvest.
The sugar, produced by hard working hands in the cane fields.
The vine fruits, picked by hand, spread out in the sun on rough sacking to dry.
The nuts, ground fine - because 'bought marzipan will do, but homemade is better' says my mother, baker and lover of cakes, maker and decorator of children.

These things are of my life, yet come from other lives of mine.

The eggs I gathered as a child, staying on a farm in Norfolk.
The flour, ground from the wheat my sister-in-law had harvested.
The sugar, produced by friends in western Kenya, who laboured from before dawn to beyond dusk to hack and cut the unyielding cane.
The grapes, picked by my Cretan sister's neighbours, dried in the village fields. Withering, changing until I could once again revive their plumpness.
The nuts I bought in a Kenyan market, paying by the heaped tin, sorting through for insects. Grinding by hand, kneading with the egg and sugar, working,working into marchpane sweetmeat.

Simnel cake, you echo the Passover meal. Eggs roasted, celebrating freedom and new life. Fruits, resembling the bricks and mortar made by those slaves in Egypt. The sugar sweetness of freedom. The grapes which grew so abundantly in the Promised Land.

Now, Simnel cake, you echo Easter.
New life; abundance; sweetness of forgiveness;becoming one with Jesus in the vine of his kingdom.

Simnel cake, I made you.
I rejoice in what you are made of.

Spring is sprung

My father used to recite this little verse:
Spring is sprung,
De grass is riz,
I wonder where dem boidies is?
De little boids is on de wing,
Ain’t dat absurd?
De wings is on de little boid!

Spring is definitely springing, if not yet completely sprung, as the leaves start to poke out of the tree branches. Every spring is, in effect, an act of new creation. I love this time of year, when the weather is clear and sunny, the branches are bare with a hint of green just beginning to show, and the air is filled with birdsong. Creation seems about to explode with life!

Yesterday, a mother duck, accompanied by eight tiny, timide, newly hatched ducklings, arrived on the pond. She spent the whole time swimming around, anxiously quacking advice - her beak was never still for a second. The ducklings stuck to her like glue to start with: a yacht with eight dinghies in tow; but after a while they started to cruise around, mini-dodgem cars, on their own. Then, after their swim, they clambered out onto the grass and dried off, huddling beneath their mother's wings.

An image of God's care for us.

The Parable of the Talents - take two.

Our class assembly today. The parable of the talents. It was WONDERFUL.

From a chaotic beginning, the children had put together a superb explanation of all our work in the last couple of weeks.

There was a serious introduction.
Then a re-enactment of the parable, complete with props and costumes.
The detailed explanations and a powerpoint explaining how the boys had been given £1 each, which they then 'multiplied'.

Many had made cakes and other goodies, which they sold in school; at the hockey club; in their parents' offices. One cooked dinner for his family. Another made bookmarks and Easter chicks. Another bought and sold 'Gogos' - tiny plastic collectable figures. Yet another bought sweets, which he used to pay his sister to go round with a collecting tin, dishing out stickers whenever someone contributed. (He was a little embarrassed about this particular venture, when he saw how hard his classmates had worked to bake and produce goods for sale.) Two boys washed cars. Some made and sold jewellery. There seemed to be no end to their ingenuity.

Then they showed what talents they had. Drumming, guitar playing, football, hockey, cartwheels... yet another powerpoint, accompanied by videos. All showcased by two boys who had computers all sussed out.

Finally, a beautiful prayer, heart-wrenching in its sincerity and appropriateness. It even rhymed.

30 boys had raised over £450 for a project which supports AIDS widows and orphans in Tanzania. And had had an absolute ball at the same time.

Brilliant fun.